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PW #108: Adult Dark Fantasy: TIDEPOOL

Tuesday, 31 October 2017  |  Posted by Brenda Drake

Manuscript Status: Finished

Mentor Name: Peter McLean

Mentee Name: Nicole Willson

Title: TIDEPOOL

Category: Adult

Genre: Dark Fantasy

Word Count: 77,000 words

Pitch:

When Sorrow Hamilton travels to Tidepool in search of her missing brother Henry, she finds sinister locals, an intimidating widow with a daughter who may not be human, and a town caught in an ancient web of evil. Discovering a deadly ritual to appease the immortal creatures that dwell in the ocean, Sorrow knows that avenging Henry will doom all of Tidepool – and its denizens are hell-bent on making sure she never leaves. Gender-flipped Lovecraftian dark fantasy meets American Horror Story.

Excerpt:

Henry Hamilton
September 1913

Tidepool looked like the kind of place where people went to die, not to live.

After less than a day there, Henry Hamilton had already seen enough. His father had settled on the little oceanside town as a possible location for a beach resort. Henry’s colleague and friend Charlie Sherman returned from the place completely high on the idea, but as Henry strolled around Tidepool’s dirt streets he couldn’t understand their enthusiasm.

The only thing about Tidepool that Henry found impressive was the brick mansion that sat atop a high hill overlooking the town and the Atlantic. The enormous, elaborate house looked like someone had dropped it in from another, wealthier place.

The rest of Tidepool was all rusted metal signs and faded paint on wooden buildings that had long since warped in the town’s pervasive dampness. The ramshackle stores lining the main street looked like they might collapse into splinters and planks if Henry gave them a good swift kick.

He was starting to want to.

The vast, sprawling cemetery that Henry passed did little to improve his opinion of the place. Rows of mossy headstones stretched back as far as he could see, and the graveyard appeared larger than the town itself.

Well, that’s a swell sight to greet visitors, he thought.

 

Filed: PW Entries

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